Yto BarradaRiffs

For her Midwest museum debut, Tangier-based artist Yto Barrada will exhibit Riffs, an installation of photographs and films that inquire into the daily traces of historical changes taking place in North Africa, the artist’s home. Barrada, who is Deutsche Bank’s Artist of the Year 2011, has developed an artistic practice which combines the strategies of documentary with a metaphoric approach to imagery, resulting in a body of work lauded for its emblematic power. The installation which was previously on view at the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin draws from past bodies of Barrada’s work, including A Life Full of Holes: The Strait Project (1998-2004) and Iris Tingitana (2007), reconfiguring them in new relationships together with the artist’s most recent work.

Barrada (b. 1971, Paris) grew up between Tangier and Paris, where she studied history and political science at the Sorbonne. She subsequently attended the International Center of Photography in New York. After sixteen years abroad, she returned home to Tangiers where she continues to engage the complex realities around her, avoiding the rigidity of any ideological discourse, and without recourse to the spectacular or the melodramatic. In addition to her recent solo exhibit at the Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin, a partnership between Deutsche Bank and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, she also exhibited at the 2011 Venice Biennale.

This exhibition is realized in cooperation with Deutsche Bank. Yto Barrada is Deutsche Bank’s Artist of the Year 2011. She was selected on the recommendation of the Deutsche Bank global Art Advisory Council, Curator: Friedhelm Hutte, Deutsche Bank Global Head of Art, co-curator: Marie Muracciole.

The Chicago presentation of Riffs has received support from the France Chicago Center.